Completely agree. Well, we got Cliffjumper, but those were the days of straight repaints with no new heads. That would have gone a long way on that figure.

Cliffjumper really needed a new head, this is true. But not including one led to that third-party head upgrade being made. And that being such a huge hit was one of the big factors in driving the huge 3P boom we have now! If Hasbro hadn't been so lazy, I wonder how different the landscape might be now.

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Originally Posted by ganon578

Now we're finally getting a Throttlebot repaint with Roadburn from TR Bumblebee. Figures. At least he's got a new head!

Can't deny, I'm super excited for a new Throttlebot! I'm half-expecting Legends Brawn to get tarted up as Rollbar, but that's less exciting since Brawn doesn't really transform like a Throttlebot.

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Originally Posted by ganon578

And you're getting a big Black Shadow... it just happens to have no Pretender functionality.

True enough! And it looks a lot better than the old Generations figure, to be sure. But it's also very obviously meant to be used as Overlord later, and I can't see myself buying a Leader mold twice.

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Originally Posted by ganon578

I recently came across my old Universe Ironhide and Ratchet deluxes, and felt the same way. Those were really the days of over-engineering in that size class. I liked the figures for a time, but they're a pain to transform and you're left with a metric s***-ton of panel lines.

Those two are probably the worst examples of it, but yeah. A lot of figures in that era suffered from having movie-level complexity applied to designs that didn't really need it.

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Originally Posted by ganon578

My Trailbreaker had stress marks on the shoulders after one go at the transformation. Neat little guy over all, but I've since replaced him with CW Trailbreaker. I'm not sure that I really made an upgrade.

CW Trealbreaker uses the same mold as First Aid, right? The truck/SUV? If so, yeah...a wash at best. Out of all the CW figures I've got, First Aid is fighting Brawl for the worst of the bunch.

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Originally Posted by ganon578

My Cyclonus is pretty right all around; I don't think I've experienced the same looseness as you. His back end is rather full of holes though, and I'm not fond of the relative instability of that area in space ship mode. Got the CW version of him, and it's obvious the mold wasn't made for Cyclonus at all. That said, the top of the space ship looks really good, but the bottom has got that robot-tacked-on-ship thing going for it.

CW Cyclonus does nothing for me either. Honestly I don't even think the mold is very good as Silverbolt, though it gets the job done very well as a combiner torso. All of the Voyagers from CW just wound up being pretty mediocre standalone toys, other than maybe Sky Lynx (who I can't comment on since I don't have one). The Deluxes all felt kinda samey, but most of them still manage to be fun. The Voyagers aren't really all that fun unless they're combined, though.

And it amazes me to think that they stretched out just four molds across six waves. TR has more than that in the first three!

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Originally Posted by ganon578

Speaking of that era, I still have my Classics Optimus on my shelf too. Man, that figure was really done well. Outdated by now for sure, but it's a simple figure and looks great. The articulation is still pretty good all things considered. The only thing that ever bugged me about him is the truck sides on his forearms. And the lack of a proper-stylized rifle.

I've somehow managed to never own Classics Optimus or any of his redecos. The figure never appealed, but honestly I don't think much of any of the new spins on G1 Optimus that have been done since then, either. The original design is so simple and iconic, but Hasbro just never seems to get it right. Nothing short of the MPs has captured the look of G1 Prime, at least for me.

The rifle and the transformation are a big part of it, but they almost never try to give him a G1-looking gun, and the only toy that tried to emulate the transformation was the Classics Deluxe (which had it's own problems).

It's funny because they've tried twice now to make a modern Laser Prime, and now a modern Powermaster, but never really taken aim at the original look.